Deaf, dumb… not blind

We are back in the trenches. This is the time for buck-passing. Sentimental decisions would soon be made. Super Eagles can do no wrong. Their coaches are infallible. Hard luck, poor officiating and injuries would soon be ascribed as some of the reasons why Nigeria didn’t go beyond the second round. Yet, before these matches, we were tasked to pray for the Eagles. Some pastors and Imams and prophets joined in the task, predicting Eagles’ games, such that the morale in the team’s camp rose, once these predictions were announced. Such was our lot at the World Cup in Brazil. Indeed, Nigeria’s quest for the World Cup was an accident waiting to happen.

With four points from possible 12, you don’t need rocket science brain to know that such a performance was awful. No parent will spare the rod on any kid who scored 33.3 per cent in his/her examinations. The Eagles’ outing at the Mundial translates to one-third, amounting to 33.3 per cent. Elsewhere, the coaches would honourably resign and apologise to the nation. If they don’t, those in charge of the game will ask the coaches to go.

No so for Nigeria, even when we know that the coaches picked the 23-man squad that did great disservice to the game in this polity. It is true that coaches in other climes get the freehand to pick their players. But, these coaches aren’t scared to face the media to explain why they picked those listed and why others were dropped. It is also true that most of the 32 countries at the Brazil 2014 World Cup had issues with players’ selection. But those countries’ coaches still picked their best players around the world for the Mundial.

The Super Eagles’ squad at the World Cup lacked depth. The coaches disagreed and we turned deaf ears to the outcry for the inclusion of Nigerian players who had distinguished themselves playing for top European clubs. Cynics, like some of us were called, queried the inclusion of certain players. We were told to mind our business. We were asked to allow the coaches do their jobs. Now that their job is shoddy, those who chastised us are dumb, unable to raise their voices to tell the truth and be damned.

Apostles of the coaches’ freehand toga have turned blind eyes to the Eagles’ shambolic outing in Brazil. They are not talking, pretending to be deaf. They have lost their voices, as if they are dumb. What a deaf, dumb but not blind football clan we have in this country.

We have overpampered the Eagles. They hold us hostage. We pander to their demands without asking how it is done elsewhere. The Eagles have failed anytime we succumb to their demands.

Many have described the Clemens Westerhof era as our best. It didn’t happen without the intrigues of match bonuses, code Once the Eagles coughed, the country tremble. It suited Westerhof then because he had access to those in power. But, like the dictum goes, those who ride on the back of the tiger end up inside the beast’s bowel. The Eagles turned against Westerhof in the United States, when they refused to obey his instruction that they change their hotel to a more serene place before the game against Italy, which Nigeria lost 2-1. Had the Eagles obeyed Westerhof, Nigeria would have hit the final because Bulgaria that we beat 3-0 won the fourth place game at the 1994 World Cup in US.

Westerhof, who erroneously thought he had the ears of those in power, was startled to see the players have their way over his decision, like it always happened between the Dutch and his employers, the Nigeria Football Association (NFA). The Dutch was unceremoniously eased out of his job much to the delight of some of his players who plotted his exit.

Westerhof’s exit provided a coaching lacuna in the Eagles. Rather than throw open the search for a competent coach to replace Westerhof, the NFA listened to Eagles’ stars who infiltrated the media to that all that Westerhof achieved was because of his assistant’s (Johannes Bonfrere’s) tactical savvy. Jo Bonfrere replaced Westerhof.

Bonfrere did well with the Eagles, not after the players he invited for the international friendly against Togo in Lagos and refused to play. Togo beat Nigeria 3-1 with most of the invited players in the stands. The players in the stands escaped when the fans went on rampage, thanks to the police.

In fact, Jonathan Akpoborie, who came to watch the game as a spectator, had to his suit for a jersey to play for Nigeria. That was how Akpoborie made the team despite his being our best player in Europe, specifically playing in the German Bundesliga.

In spite of Akpoborie’s patriotic act against Togo, Bonfrere dropped him from the squad, and opted for the gang in the team. Nigeria won the gold medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games but this marked the beginning of the brazen quest for cash before playing for Nigeria. Let us not forget how Nigeria lost the chance of a World Cup appearance at the Italia’90 World Cup, when the Eagles refused to fly out to Yaoundé until their allowances were paid. That was Westerhof’s first game and we lost to Cameroon.

The Atlanta’96 team was untouchable. They wanted to play together despite their players’ form. Bonfrere dumped the squad in the US and headed home over rifts with the then sports minister, who called his bluff when the Dutch misbehaved with a US cop. Bonfrere would have been deported but for the minister’s political intervention.

The NFA men got Phillipe Troussier courtesy of Arsenal FC of England’s manager Arsene Wenger’s recommendation. Troussier, introduced the more dynamic 3-5-2 formation which broke the Atlanta’96 squad members. The Eagles won matches without some of these Olympic medalists. Nigeria qualified for the France’98 World Cup with a game to spare in the qualifiers. Instead of keeping Troussier, we sent him away because the players exploited their closeness to those in government.

Enter journeyman Bora Milutinovic. Bora had rich World Cup pedigree but he couldn’t control the boys. It showed when Eagles’ players spent hours in the morning of match day against Demark insisting to be paid $15,000 each before the game. They reasoned that the beating the Danes was a stroll in the park, more so, when Nigeria’s next game would have been against Brazil.

The world was waiting for that rematch since Nigeria edged out Brazil in the semi-finals of the Atlanta Olympic Games. The players recognised this fact and latched on to it to cause a major embarrassment to Nigerians. The Danes beat us 4-1. Many business-minded Nigerians have not recovered from the financial losses they recorded, especially the proactive ones, who were ready to reap from the match that never held- the rematch between Nigeria and Brazil in France.

This players’ power trend in the Super Eagles continued until 2002, culminating in the team’s disbandment after the Africa Cup of Nations flop in Mali. Rock in your casket, late Isyaha Mark Aku. Aku disbanded the mafia-ridden Eagles squad. He made sure that those culpable didn’t make the squad to the Japan/Korea 2002 World Cup. Besides, the late Aku (rest in the bossom of the Lord) recruited the disciplinarian, Adegboye Onigbinde to guide the Eagles in Japan.

Onigbinde, ensured that the 2002 Japan/Korea World Cup was devoid of players’ power or intrigues. We got one point but we left Japan/Korea with integrity and our national pride intact.

Our players have succeeded in holding us hostage because we haven’t had a minister with the late Aku’s firmness to whip them into line. The late Aku was in Mali and didn’t flinch in taking a drastic action against the culprits. Aku wasn’t drawn into the usual NSC versus NFF supremacy tussle. He knew he was the boss and acted swiftly. That is the kind of reaction that this writer expects from the President Goodluck Jonathan-led administration on this group of Eagles.

Happily, Senate President David Mark was in Brazil. He witnessed firsthand the players’ conduct during his peace session with them. We were told that at one point during the discussion, Mark, asked the players to hold him hostage, if that would convince them that he could guarantee the payment of their appearance fees.

Mark resorted to this position when one of the players insisted that the $2 million be paid into their accounts before Nigeria’s opening game against Iran. The government shouldn’t tolerate a team whose players refused to train before the game against France in Brasilia, despite assurances from the government delegation that had the Senate President, three governors, several ministers and a representative of the Inspector General of Police.

President Jonathan did the proper thing by releasing $3.85 million to save Nigeria’s blushes in the hand of an irritant group. Let us not forget how this group poured odium on us by refusing to board the aircraft that FIFA provided to take them to Brazil last year for the 2013 Confederations Cup. They stayed in Namibia until the President assured them that they would be paid.

This Eagles in Brazil must go. Football in other countries is supervised by their soccer federations, not their Presidents. We must stop this unfettered access to our President for fickle things. Playing for Nigeria isn’t a debt. Nigeria won’t cease to be a sovereign nation, if we don’t qualify for the World Cup in the next 20 years.

Sports, especially football, unite us as a nation. It is only during matches that we embrace ourselves, irrespective of our religion and/or state of origin. Nowhere in the world does an employee dictate to his/her employee. Nowhere in the world does anyone get rewarded for services yet to be rendered. A word is enough for the wise, as the adage goes.